Which teacher's 1912 ideas helped Georgia O'Keeffe begin experimenting with abstraction?

Arthur Wesley Dow’s ideas helped Georgia O’Keeffe begin experimenting with abstraction in 1912.

O’Keeffe encountered Dow’s theories while studying at the University of Virginia, where she worked with Alon Bement, one of Dow’s former students. Dow emphasized composition, harmony, and the expressive use of line, color, and tone rather than simple imitation of nature.

These ideas gave O’Keeffe a way to organize images through formal relationships. Her charcoal abstractions of 1915, later shown to Alfred Stieglitz, grew from this shift away from conventional academic representation. Stieglitz’s exhibition of those drawings helped launch her professional career.

William Merritt Chase was also an important teacher in O’Keeffe’s training, especially at the Art Students League. The distinction is that Chase taught academic painting, while Dow’s principles were especially influential in her move toward abstraction.